Voicemail forward feature.

Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback

Post 1 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 9:00:56

Hey, I had a suggestion. How about a foward voicemail feature for ZBP? You can already do this with private messages, so why not voicemail too? This, I think would be a good idea for a lot of reasons. What does everyone thingk?

Post 2 by Texas Shawn (The cute, cuddley, little furr ball) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 10:00:02

ya, sounds good, I was thinking about this one today too!

Post 3 by Brooke (I just keep on posting!) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 12:53:50

Great idea, I like it!

Post 4 by Blue Velvet (I've got the platinum golden silver bronze poster award.) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 13:19:18

Well, I'd be a bit worried about sending someone a private voice mail if I had to worry they might forward it to a bunch of other people. That would be my only concern, but I can also see its merits.

Post 5 by PorkInCider (Wind assisted.) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 14:06:44

This has been discussed many times over the last fcouple of years, and I don't know why it's not been done. However, I like Becky have reservations as you never know who would forward your vm on and disrespect you and your feelings. so I don't think it's something I'd really want.

Post 6 by laced-unlaced (Account disabled) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 14:13:00

agree with the first few posts, nice idea

Post 7 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 16:23:26

Well, i only suggested it, because as with private messages, you can forward them, so it would be the same thing really. They can ad a mark nonforwardable for all users but CL's and admins feature for protection.

Post 8 by Albanac (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 17:02:10

I'm not sure I like this idea to be honest Bridg because it may leave the way open for someone who is being ignored, to forward a vm to another user who isn't, so that it can be passed onto the one ignoring the first user. for example, say I am ignoring you, you could then pass it on to faraaz who could then, as i'm not ignoring him, pass it to me. See what I mean? Otherwise yeah, it is a great idea. Unless of course the ignore feature is advanced enough to look at all parties to a forward, I don't know.

Cheers,
Simon

Post 9 by SunshineAndRain (I'm happily married, a mom of two and a fulltime college student.) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 21:58:21

Good idea! I like it, too.

Post 10 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Saturday, 21-Feb-2009 22:33:25

I would agree Simon, but I'm thinking the system might be able to detect that stuff. I know other systems have. Also, people do that now, so there's not much difference really. Same goes with private messages on the system.

Post 11 by SingerOfSongs (Heresy and apostasy is how progress is made.) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 2:31:31

I like the idea well enough, though I see Simon's point. I don't know enough about the internals of the system to know how hard it would be to stop something like that. (I'm almost positive the forwarding part at least could be done rather easily, just not sure about the going around ignores issue.)

Post 12 by Albanac (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 6:36:52

Ah! well in that case, if we can stop them bypassing ignore it is a great idea. I just approach things like this with caution knowing what i do about ... the uses zone features have been put to in the past, shall we say.

Post 13 by Brooke (I just keep on posting!) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 8:36:32

People bypass the ignore feature through private messages and voicemails already though; and I know there are people who download voicemails and then pass them around anyway. So I really don't think adding a forward feature would cause that much chaos.

Post 14 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 10:01:39

lmfao that's what i was trying to say, Brooke just said it better. I agree.

Post 15 by cumbiambera2005 (i just keep on posting!) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 10:22:15

yeah, that is true, great idea I suppose! :)

Post 16 by GoldenPhoenix (Zone BBS Addict) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 10:22:43

I love this idea Bridgette! I have over a hundred voicemails saved, and people keep asking me to forward a few particular ones to them.
And I was worried about the whole Ignoring thing too, but since that's already been explained...
And yeah. Why wouldn't the system be able to implement this like we forward private messages around anyways?

Post 17 by Q (Take my advice, I'm not using it anyhow.) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 14:18:59

Personally I like the idea, although, like Becky say, I have some issues.
Let's see what the admins say.

Post 18 by Liz (The Original) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 14:47:08

I take the view of both Miah and Simon . It's a nice idea, but I would definitely worry about people abusing it.

Post 19 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Sunday, 22-Feb-2009 15:41:27

People already can, and do, abuse just about every feature that is on this site. If this were to get implemented, and then get abused, we'd just have to take action against the one who did it. I'd be concerned about privacy, too, like Becky said in her original post, but then, you'd just have to be careful who you gave what information to. That's something we should all do anyway. We'll bring this to the admins, see what they say about it.

Post 20 by Brooke (I just keep on posting!) on Monday, 23-Feb-2009 10:11:03

Maybe it would work better if the feature was only available to premium members? If I remember right, premiums are the only ones who have the ability to download voicemails anyway. So as it stands now, premiums can basically do whatever they want with their voicemails (I've already seen people download their voicemails and use them as an audio profile or pass them around to people). So I don't think privacy would really be a huge issue if this option was to be added.

Post 21 by Chris N (I just keep on posting!) on Monday, 23-Feb-2009 11:14:58

I like the idea of making this a premium-only feature. I'll keep it in mind.

Post 22 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 23-Feb-2009 13:24:01

Brooke, that is a good idea about being a premium only feature. be prepared for backlash for suggesting it though, as apparently all of us premiums are snobs, and people think they should be given every feature without paying for it. Grin.

Post 23 by SunshineAndRain (I'm happily married, a mom of two and a fulltime college student.) on Monday, 23-Feb-2009 15:56:20

Yeah! We should make it strictly premium. I think, the more features premiums get, the more it'll convince standards to upgrade. It's simply good business strategy.

Post 24 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Monday, 23-Feb-2009 16:25:43

lmfao Alicia, I love you! Grins!

Post 25 by saiyan4414 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2009 17:12:48

I like the idea, but not the only premium clause.

Post 26 by CrazedMidget (Sweet fantacy's really do come in small packages!) on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2009 18:48:10

This is a good idea, and I have been thinking about this for a while, and if there's a message you dont want to get forward, there should be an option before you send someone a vm that allows it to be forwarded, or not. Just my oppinion

Post 27 by Brooke (I just keep on posting!) on Tuesday, 24-Feb-2009 21:18:34

Not a bad idea Jess. I know some voicemail systems have that; if you mark the message private, it can't be forwarded.

Post 28 by Eponine (If you find a rare Gem, hold it tightly!) on Wednesday, 25-Feb-2009 0:27:26

LOL, that's what I was saying, have a, mark it private, feature.

Post 29 by pianogirl (Generic Zoner) on Wednesday, 25-Feb-2009 10:51:58

Firstly, whether we have a forwarding feature or not, people can simply three way their messages out to another system such as Simple Voicebox, Simple Voice Center, or their home voice mail, and three way it back to the system. This means that if this is a premium only feature, people who are not premium, such as myself, can simply record it on a recording device of some kind (I have an olympus that records the phone quite well,) or three way it in the way described above, and forwad it in this way. Having said that, there are some who either do not have three way or do not know how to three way messages, so this may not be as much of a problem as it seems. I have been on telephone systems that do not have a forwarding feature however, and I simply record the message and forward it back. It's sort of similar to the way the premiums are the only ones who get private conferencing, but there are free services, one of which was recently advertised on here, that allow you to set up private conferences completely off system, with their own dedicated telephone number and web control. Not to mention, the codes can be up to 20 digits long and there's no limit on the capacity of the conference.

I personally don't really care whether there is a forwarding feature or not simply because, as I said, I have an olympus ds-50 which can very easily be used to record the phone, plus, thanks to my parents not paying the bill we now don't have long distance for the next little while, and my school just completely blocks all long distance. If one does get implemented, I would like to see it be a standard feature. The only reason I would see for making it a premium feature is that every time you forward a message, it has to make a duplicate of the message on the zone's hard drive and put that message in someone else's box. I do see particular individuals purposely forwarding message after message to themselves, in an attempt to fill up the zone's hard drive. It wouldn't surprise me. But this could be a standard member or premium member who does this. Maybe the admins could put a limit on everyone's voicemail folder so they could only have a certain number of messages or something. Or depending on the quality of the messages, a certain total size of their folder. I'm really not sure how that would be done, since I'm not exactly the most technical person in the world, but it's just a thought.